Joris Kluivers

I like to build software.

Leopard Developer Features

Matt Legend Gemmell posted a fairly long overview of all Leopard developer improvements. Since I didn’t receive my Leopard DVD yet and Apple still needs some time to post new documentation this is what I waited for!

API improvements I find interesting:
  • The Automator framework to run automator workflows from within my own applications
  • Core Data and Sync Services now work together which makes syncing data stored in Core Data much easier
  • Source lists and rule editors


It looks like Apple finally opened up a lot of API’s they were using all along in Tiger which we now can use too. With Leopard it looks like OS X matured a long way for developers with way better API’s. All improvements let developers create applications that look much more like the Apple applications (think iLife and SafarI) while in Tiger we had to create all Apple like features (think HUD windows) ourselves. We are now even officially allowed to use some Images that are used everywhere in applications by Apple (like the gear icon in almost every preference window).